Moderna's manufacturing test

Hello,

On Tuesday, the UK officially started administering COVID-19 vaccines outside of a clinical trial - beginning with 90-year-old Margaret Keenan.

In the meantime, here in the US, we're poring over documents released today by the Food and Drug Administration about Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine.

Also today in healthcare news: A closer look at Moderna's vaccine factory, a $650 million health-tech deal, and how the top three vaccines compare in terms of cost, efficacy, and more.

Moderna's ambitions of pumping out up to 1 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine rest on a former Polaroid factory that's never produced an approved drug

• Coronavirus vaccines will likely begin to be rolled out around the world in the next few weeks, after two experimental shots showed strong protection against COVID-19 in studies.
• A key challenge will be mass production, particularly for Moderna, the Massachusetts biotech behind one of the frontrunners that has never before produced a commercial medicine.
• US regulators are also not requiring formal inspections of facilities before issuing an emergency OK. Moderna's plant in Norwood, Massachusetts, has never been formally inspected and will be needed to produce millions of doses.
• Here's how Moderna is taking on the challenge, hoping to produce as many as 1 billion doses in 2021.

Read the full story from Andrew Dunn here>>

SCOOP: PointClickCare is buying a Kleiner Perkins-backed startup for $650 million in the latest sign that health-tech is heating up

• PointClickCare Technologies is buying Collective Medical for just under $650 million, Business Insider has learned.
• PointClickCare is health IT company that helps nursing homes and other long-term care facilities run their businesses. Collective's tech keeps doctors updated about their patients.
• Once combined, the hope is to help providers shift to payment models that reward them for keeping patients healthy instead of making money when they get surgeries and treatments.

Read the full scoop from Blake Dodge here>>

Here's how the top 3 coronavirus vaccines compare when it comes to efficacy, cost, and more

• In November, AstraZeneca and Oxford University released preliminary results from late-stage trials that showed that their vaccine candidate was about 70% effective in protecting against COVID-19.
• The vaccine joins two others - one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, another by Moderna - as frontrunners in the race for a vaccine to address the coronavirus pandemic.
• There are key differences between the three vaccines, in terms of cost, distribution, regulatory approval, and more.

Check out the full graphic from Isabella Jibilian here>>

More stories we're reading:

• Trump officials passed on buying more vaccine doses from Pfizer this summer (The New York Times)
• States used outdated estimates to calculate their vaccine allotments (Bloomberg)
• Researchers predict US coronavirus deaths could double by April and say masks could save more lives than vaccines before then (Business Insider)
• Pfizer and Moderna won't be attending the White House's "Vaccine Summit" on Tuesday (Stat News)
• A free app from Brown University researchers reveals your risk of getting COVID-19 based on your activity and zip code (Business Insider)

- Lydia